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Favorite Doc and Straw moment

Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry will be inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame this weekend. Both players brought a certain electricity to Shea Stadium.

Each player had the ability to grab the crowd by the scruff of the neck.

For Strawberry, it was the sense of anticipation with every at-bat. He was one of the few players who kept you riveted every time he came to the plate because there was the prospect of hitting a mammoth home run like the one he hit off the scoreboard clock in St. Louis.

For Gooden, during the summers of 1985 and 1986 there was a buzz at Shea whenever he took the mound. I remember how the crowd would rise and scream whenever he got two strikes on a hitter. Gooden had electric stuff, the kind that made you wonder if this would be the night he’d throw a no-hitter.

Eventually, he did. But, fittingly in the tormented history of this franchise, he did so for the Yankees.

3 thoughts on “Favorite Doc and Straw moment”

My Doc memory is easy. It was 1986. I was on leave from the Navy. the date was the fourth of july. In those days I just showed my military ID and got in free. I doubt they do that now. Anyway, the matchup was Gooden vs. Nolan Ryan. This matchup lived up to its billing as the mets squeeked out a 1-0 victory.
Straw is a little harder, but the one that stands out is when he hit a walk off homer off none other than Johnny Franco then with the Reds in 1988. I think that was the first save Franco had blown all year up to that time and he was having a great season. Boy that 88 team was so loaded. How did we not beat the dodgers?

1) Sitting in Shea on that crisp October afternoon for ’86 NLCS Game 3 — the Mets’ first home playoff game in 13 years — and watching Darryl cream Bob Knepper’s first-pitch, sixth-inning fastball for a monster, game-tying three-run shot into the loge seats in right field.
I was a freshman in college and had come home to go with my Dad to Games 3 and 4. Everyone at Shea went completely NUTS.
Gary Carter and Keith Hernandez who scored before him went nuts at the plate (note on the replay Keith’s enthusiastically and instensely shoving Straw in congratulations) and most of the Mets dugout bounded up from the steps into the on-deck circle to welcome Straw home.
And then the curtain call and we all went nuts again.

Favorite Doc moment:

I wasn’t there for this one, but — being that ESPN’s MLB coverage was at the time still four years away — me and a buddy in college managed to tune into WFAN to hear Bob Murphy’s call of Doc’s recording the 1986 NL East division clinching out. Later that night I saw it — a mind bending curveball that the Cubs’ Chico Walker rolled to Wally Backman, who bent down on one knee before throwing it to first for the out. Then the shot of Gooden looking overjoyed, but a little scared (with the onrushing fans storming the field, he didn’t know quite what to do). Then Kevin Mitchell and Lee Mazzilli sacked Gooden before Gary Carter could. This was especially a poignant moment for Doc, because he never won a post-season game in his career (though people sometimes forget how well he pitched in the NLCS, despite a complete game loss and a 10-inning no decision). The division-clinching moment was arguably Doc’s greatest one as a Met.